


I Can't Put My Foot In My Mouth (It's Already Full)

by Elpie (Horribibble)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blind Date, Brief Non-Erotic Choking, It's an accident, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:58:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6403966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Horribibble/pseuds/Elpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is busy stuffing his face when the escaped magazine cover model plops down across from him. </p><p>This makes it a bit difficult to explain that he isn't the man's blind date. (And also to breathe.)</p><p>-</p><p>for the prompt: “your friend set you up on a blind date and i happened to be eating alone so you thought you were meeting me and you were cute so i went along with it but you just got a text from said friend that they’re sorry your date stood you up and now i have some explaining to do” au</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Can't Put My Foot In My Mouth (It's Already Full)

**Author's Note:**

> I am in Dorian Rare Pair hell.  
> Help.

It’s early Spring in Fereldan, the first warm rays of the sun melting the snow scattered over the ground, easing it back into the earth and pulling up the first buds in its wake. The weather isn’t what anyone would reasonably call warm yet, but Anders is made of hardier stock than most of the locals. The Anderfels were colder than a chantry sister’s tit, and though Anders was taken off young, he remembers playing Freeze Out with his younger siblings until his mother had hollered and bundled them all back inside.

Her little _idioten_ all red-faced from the shame and the chill, staring up obediently until she couldn’t help but laugh. He remembers the warm crocks of soup she’d press into their hands.

The fare here will never compare, but Anders certainly isn’t going to complain. He’s finally been reminded to put something on his stomach after more than a day running himself ragged at the clinic, and so he sits out on the little patio at his favorite cafe, ignoring the breeze as he tears into a heaping helping of stew and a generously piled basket of warm, fresh bread.

His coat is worn, but comfortable, and it guards him well enough from the breeze. The air nips at his fingers where his gloves leave his hands bare, but he ignores the sensation in favor of tearing off crumbs and tossing them to the little birds gathering nearby.

It’s a good day, and though he’s tired, the sun warms his face.

He’s content like this, and so he hums thoughtfully, sops up some of the stew with a hunk of bread, and stuffs the whole thing in his mouth. Just in time for what must be the most astonishingly well-groomed man he’s ever _seen_ to drape himself in the chair across from him.

The man doesn’t seem too concerned for the hamster-like bulge of Ander’s cheek or the confused blinking as he adjusts his coat and fusses with his posture. Like a nervous bird trying to display itself properly. “I’m terribly sorry for my lateness. Please don’t think ill of me. I’m still learning to navigate the hell that is public transportation in this city. I don’t know how you all manage it.”

 _Fuck if I know,_ Anders thinks. _I walk everywhere._

 **Chew.** He tells himself. **Chew. Swallow.** _ **Say something.**_

“I’m Dorian, of course.”

_Of course._

“Felix hasn’t told me much about you, I’m afraid. Though I suppose that means we’ll be in for an adventure getting to know one another. ...Unless he’s taken the time to warn you about me.”

Anders has no idea what he’s talking about. The man must be mistaken, searching for a blind date or something, but he’s too busy caught up in that mischievous smile and the half-chewed crust of bread in his gob to puzzle out what there is to _warn_ people about.

Dorian is the _prettiest man he’s ever seen._

 **Spit it out,** his brain signals, and Anders shifts the food in his mouth. No. He can’t just do that while this man is watching him so intently. A napkin. He could try to deposit the food into a napkin. His eyes dart around nervously, searching for any such thing, but of course he didn’t grab one.

He’s a heathen. His mother would be ashamed.

**D o  s om e t h i n g.**

This is what happens when you socialize exclusively with assholes and cats.

He’s sitting on the patio of a quaint little cafe in his ragged jeans and t-shirt, and his beat-up old jacket, his hair falling out of its tie, staring in mortification at a man who seems to have escaped a magazine cover thinking, _Spit or swallow?_

“Oh, I’m sorry. I keep going on about myself. And you--oh, I can’t deny I’m pleased. Honestly, when Felix told me he meant to fix me up with someone _decent_ I was expecting one of his dreadful work friends. Geniuses, the lot of them. All pressed and polished. Perfectly kind and decent, which is of course what he was going for. Not at all my type. But Maker, you’re adorable. And _tall.”_ Somehow Dorian manages to make the word ‘tall’ sound utterly _filthy_. “Even if you’re dressed like a hobo.”

Anders can’t help but laugh a little, and that’s when he feels the crust catch in his throat.

There’s a cheery little chime, and Dorian looks down at his phone even as Anders’ eyes widen in horror. He’s going to suffocate on a piece of bread and die on a blind date that isn’t even his because he eats like a pig and his _mother would be so ashamed of him and--_

“Oh,” Dorian says. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

“Yes.” Anders wheezes.

Dorian frowns, only just glancing up from his phone screen. “You could have-- _Maker!_ ” He stands from the chair so quickly that it falls over, darting immediately to Anders’ side. “Up you get.”

His voice is demanding, and Anders begins to obey even as he tries to hack up the stubborn crust. He feels the other man come up beside him, a reassuring presence at his side, and hold onto his arm as the other hand strikes heel-first between his shoulder blades.

 _Once, twice, three times,_ and Anders hacks up the offending blockage.

“Well,” He coughs. “I’m an idiot.”

“Rather.” Dorian huffs, hands on his hips as he looks Anders up and down. “You’re not even _my_ idiot.”

“I could be.” He grins, not a bit impishly. “I mean, I _am_ rather decent. And tall. And adorable.”

Dorian blushes a lovely shade of red.

“You’re horrid is what you are.”

“That, too.” Anders says, and then bats his eyelashes like a winsome maiden. “But ser, you’ve saved my life.”

“Ugh.” Dorian grunts. “Lucky for you, I suppose, that I’ve been stood up.” But he smiles and settles back in his chair.

“Always have been. ...That is if you aren’t allergic to cats.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt and scream over on tumblr at [anabundanceofstilinskis.](http://anabundanceofstilinskis.tumblr.com/)


End file.
